For The Church Wendy AlsupFor The Church Wendy Alsuphttps://ftc.co/resource-library/author-index/wendy-alsup
Preaching Hard StoriesWendy AlsupGod spoke into these situations with temporary protections that pointed to the Savior coming who will correct all injustice.
God spoke into these situations with temporary protections that pointed to the Savior coming who will correct all injustice.
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Fri, 08 Feb 2019 00:10:00 -0600https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/preaching-hard-stories
https://ftc.co/resource-library/1/4299Preaching Hard StoriesPreaching Hard Stories

In all of my adult years in the church, I have never heard a pastor volunteer up a Sunday sermon on The Trial by Ordeal God gave Moses in Numbers 5 for a jealous husband who suspects his wife has been unfaithful. I can't remember hearing a sermon on the instructions in Deuteronomy 21 on the process for a Jew who wants to marry a female slave captured in war or those in Deuteronomy 22 requiring a man to marry the woman he raped. I've also never heard a sermon on the topic of the rape of Dinah in Genesis 34.

Of course, there are obvious reasons pastors don't want to touch these passages with a ten-foot pole. They seem ripe with pitfalls and potholes. How can you exposit these passages without hurting someone who has been forced to do something sexually against their will? How can you preach on them when they seem to tolerate oppression against women? Honestly, you probably can't preach them without criticism. Someone will find fault because these hit vulnerable, painful places in the lives of many. Nevertheless, I submit that, if all of Scripture is profitable for teaching (2 Tim. 3:16), then we are missing some profit for the church by neglecting these passages. It will benefit churches to look at these hard passages, for they too are useful for teaching, correction, and training in righteousness.

Here are some things to think through as you look for the profit and benefits these passages can bring to your church. First, acknowledge head on that these passages, by themselves, are hard and oppressive. It's good and right to sit in them with your congregation and lament the oppression they represent, in this case, sins against vulnerable women and girls in a culture in which they had little say over their affairs. I can't emphasize this enough. These passages present teaching moments and training in righteousness that will benefit your church. Before taking a step further in understanding the passages, stop first to lament the brutality against women accepted across cultures for thousands of generations, both inside and outside the household of God. Without honest lament over all that is wrong in the world, including among those who claim belief in the God of the Bible, the grace and hope we have through Jesus Christ loses its meaning and power.

Second, these passages do not stand alone. Teach them in their larger context of the Creation/Fall/Redemption story from Genesis to Revelation. Oppressive stories of women in Scripture are linked from Eve, to Dinah, to the women affected by Numbers 5, Deuteronomy 21, and Deuteronomy 22, to Mary the mother of Jesus, the woman caught in adultery in John 8, instructions on women in I Corinthians 11, and the final moments of Revelation when God walks up to each of us to wipe the tears from our eyes. God predicted the oppression of women in Genesis 3. But, though Satan thought he had ruined God's plan by targeting Eve, God cursed Satan in part with the knowledge that He will use another woman to bring the Savior of humanity into the world. The conflict of the ages began, and women have been targeted with particular venom by the prince of this world. Jealous husbands, conquerors who sexually desired their slaves, and a society that punished rape victims followed. God spoke into these situations with temporary protections that pointed to the Savior coming who will correct all injustice and overturn all oppression, who will wipe away every one of our tears.

These passages aren't easy to teach. But they are worth the work to handle them well. There is profit to be found in them, buried treasure that points us to Christ, who was born of woman to save women and men, from the sins committed against them and the sins committed by them. Steward them well.

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Jesus Fell AsleepWendy AlsupFor centuries, earnest Christians faithfully following Jesus have experienced a God who seems asleep at times, sometimes for long seasons in their lives. In the disciples' case in Luke 8, He literally was asleep. In my life, it has seemed He slept as I needed direction. Sometimes, He felt asleep as I needed deliverance from a trial. But as time goes on and I can look back, I recognize that He really seemed asleep because He was at complete peace in how He was moving in my life.
For centuries, earnest Christians faithfully following Jesus have experienced a God who seems asleep at times, sometimes for long seasons in their lives. In the disciples' case in Luke 8, He literally was asleep. In my life, it has seemed He slept as I needed direction. Sometimes, He felt asleep as I needed deliverance from a trial. But as time goes on and I can look back, I recognize that He really seemed asleep because He was at complete peace in how He was moving in my life.
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Mon, 23 Nov 2015 00:30:00 -0600https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/jesus-fell-asleep
https://ftc.co/resource-library/1/1656Jesus Fell AsleepJesus Fell Asleep

As I was reading from the book of Luke this morning, a phrase in the middle of the story of Jesus calming the waters struck me, "he fell asleep."

Luke 8 22 One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, 23 and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. 24 And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

Jesus fell asleep right in the middle of a scary trial for His disciples. At first reading, this feels callous on His part. Or oblivious. Or passive-aggressive. I've experienced people who have mocked others for not understanding a future outcome or used their ignorance against them to humiliate them. But we know that is not Jesus' character. He's about to be bloodied and humiliated for these very same disciples. With love and compassion, He will lay His life down for them and freely offer them cleansing through His sacrifice. He is not the passive-aggressive sort.

Instead, I think Jesus' response in this boat is simply one of peace. He knows of the coming good outcome, both of the miracle of calming the waters and the growth of needed faith and confidence in His disciples. Jesus was eternally minded in a temporal world. He was at peace that the temporary discomfort and fear His disciples were experiencing would resolve in ways that were eternally good for them. And so He slept.

Throughout Scripture, God has had periods of time where He seemed asleep. Maybe, in heaven, He actually was. This is not to be confused with oblivion, where the incompetent king falls asleep and the kingdom falls apart without his knowledge. God's sleep is a sleep of sovereign peace, for the record has been written and it will come to pass as the ultimate will of the King of Kings is always carried out. God sleeps in peace. And again and again, He arouses Himself in time to put things in order as He always intended.

Joseph, Ruth, and David give us micro pictures of this, as each in their own lifetime saw the resolution of things after periods where God seemed asleep in their struggles. But they also give us macro pictures of this, as each contributes to a story that lasted much longer than their lives, that wasn't resolved until Jesus came onto the scene thousands of years after their death.

For centuries, earnest Christians faithfully following Jesus have experienced a God who seems asleep at times, sometimes for long seasons in their lives. In the disciples' case in Luke 8, He literally was asleep. In my life, it has seemed He slept as I needed direction. Sometimes, He felt asleep as I needed deliverance from a trial.

But as time goes on and I can look back, I recognize that He really seemed asleep because He was at complete peace in how He was moving in my life—what He was teaching me and how the circumstances would resolve for His purposes in my life. He didn't give me direction for a year because it was the absolute lack of direction that would funnel me into His next steps for my life.

He didn't deliver me from my trial because the trial itself was my path. He is at peace with His plan for my life. He loves me, so I can be at peace too through His grace. It blesses me to think of my God with a sovereign micro plan over my finite earthly life that feeds into His macro plan for His kingdom purposes. And it blesses me to think of Him completely at peace with the circumstances He has put in my life, so much so that He can sleep knowing that His purposes are good and they will be carried out.